Directed by: Tarsem Singh
Written by: Àlex Pastor, David Pastor
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Natalie Martinez, Matthew Goode
Is there anything you wouldn’t do to live a longer life? In Self/less, Damian Hale finds a way to shed his old life for a new one.
Billionaire Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley) is dying from cancer and doesn’t have a lot of time left. Luckily for Damian, there’s an unusual medical procedure called shedding that could save his life. A man named Albright (Goode) has found a way to transfer the consciousness of a sick individual into a new healthy body. Just like that, Damian has an extension on life. Unfortunately, after the procedure, Damian is burdened by flashes of images that he can’t understand. These images of people and places soon drive Damian to start looking for answers . . . answers that some people would do anything to keep a secret.
This sci-fi body swap was written by David Pastor and Alex Pastor. I thought the overall story was cool, but kind of predictable. The body swapping storyline isn’t anything new, but I liked the way they delivered it. They managed to give the audience a nice story that has some good character development and a few thrills along the way.
The play through was good and held my attention the entire time. I was surprised by the amount of action scenes scattered throughout the film. I didn’t know going into this one that I was going to get shootouts and fisticuffs, but is was a pretty cool surprise because it spiced things up a bit. Downside to the play through was once everything took off it turned into a fast paced flick. You’re probably thinking, “How could that be a bad thing?” Well, when trying to lay down a mystery you should give your audience time to take everything in and try to piece together all the hints and misdirects the film is giving. You don’t really get that chance in this one, as soon as they give a hint, the answer follows close behind. However, they did deliver on the thriller part.
The cast did a really good job. The Edward character has a lot going on emotionally throughout the film and Reynolds does really well showing the strain and changes his character goes through. Now, one of the problems I had with this one . . . not enough Kingsley! Kingsley comes in and lays the ground work for the Damian character and then poof, that’s it.
Overall, I liked it, but I can’t say it’s worth running to the theaters to catch. Yeah you have some cool action scenes and stuff like that in the story but there’s nothing big screen worthy.
